Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1174 page)

And for recognition of their work in the trenches for the past three weeks, the following was sent from the G.O.C. Second Division to the Officer commanding the Irish Guards:

It was the Brigadier’s reference to their having proved themselves worthy to take place with the other regiments of the Brigade of Guards, “and more so,” that delighted them most; for the Battalion felt that it had won its spurs in every field. Yet, for all that, the Diary which, under the well-worn official phrases, represents the soul of the regiment and knows how that soul is made and tempered, emphasizes the fact that at Béthune there are some “quite good parade-grounds, where a good deal of steady drill will be carried out” and plenty of country for route-marching, where the men could learn how to bear themselves without “budging” beneath the casual shells that dropped miles behind the line.

So they “rested” at Béthune and gave a concert in the theatre, to which they invited many inhabitants of the town who, being new to the manners and customs of the Irish, “could not understand much,” but a French officer sang the “Marseillaise” with great effect, and at dinner afterwards, when the Prince of Wales was among the guests, there were not only red and white roses on the table, but, according to one account, “silver spoons and forks,” provided by the owner of the house. If Béthune did not yet comprehend the songs of these wild outlanders, it had full confidence in them.

CUINCHY

The first week of July saw them returned to their own old trenches at Cuinchy — the fifty times fought-over line that ran from the La Bassée Canal to within a hundred yards of the La Bassée–Béthune road. A couple of companies of the Herts, one on each side of the La Bassée road, lay on their right, and right of those again, the 2nd Coldstream. They boasted as many as six machine-guns in position belonging to the Battalion, and three to the 2nd Grenadiers, their relief. The trenches had not improved by use since February. There were mine-craters directly in front of them, their opposing edges occupied by our men and the enemy; the breastworks were old bursten sandbags; fire-steps had broken down, dug-outs were inadequate against the large-size trench-mortar bombs that the Germans were using, and generally the condition and repair of things was heart-breaking to the new-comers and their Brigadier, who spent most of his time, night and day, in the front line.

Annequin, where two of the companies were billeted, had become more than ever a shell-trap full of English batteries for which the Germans were constantly searching; and, since experts told them that we now had got the upper hand of the enemy at mining, the cynical expected that, at any moment, some really big mine would go up beneath them. As an interlude, the companies in billets were employed in making dug-outs without any material; which trifling task they somehow accomplished. The big shells and the bombing from the trench-mortars forced them to deepen all dug-outs to ten or twelve feet. These were shored with bricks and topped with rails as material became more plentiful.

On the 17th July Captain A. H. L. McCarthy, R.A.M.C., who had broken his arm at Lapugnoy six weeks before, returned to duty and was made welcome. His sick-leave, which he seems to have filled with beseeching letters to the C.O., had been darkened by a prospect of being detached from the Battalion and sent to the Dardanelles. Father Gwynne, also, came back from his two months’ rheumatism cure, relieving Father Knapp. He was not quite restored and so was forbidden by the C.O., to show himself in the front line for at least ten days. It is to be hoped that he obeyed, but in a battalion where the call for the priest goes out with, or before, the call for stretcher-bearers, neither shepherds nor flock are long separated under any circumstances. They tell the tale of one of their priests who, utterly wearied, dropped for an hour’s sleep in a trench that was being deepened under fire. He was roused by a respectful whisper from the working-party: “We’ve dug to your head an’ your feet, Father, an’ now, if you’ll get up, we’ll dig out under the length of ye.”

The Brigade’s system of forty-eight hours’ reliefs enabled them to do more in a given time than battalions who went in for four days at a stretch, as a man could carry two days’ rations on him without drawing on the fatigue-parties, and the knowledge he would be relieved at the end of the time kept his edge. A Brigadier of experience could tell any section of the line held by the Brigade as far as he could see it, simply from the demeanour of the working-parties. This state of things was only maintained by unbroken discipline and the gospel that if one man can keep himself comparatively clean in all that dirt and confusion every one else can. It behoved the Battalion, also, to make and leave a good name among the French upon whom they were quartered, as well as with the enemy over against them. They were at that time, as for long afterwards, almost unmixed Irish, and for that reason, the relations between officers and men were unlike anything that existed elsewhere, even in nominally pure Irish battalions. If there be any mystery in the training of war that specially distinguishes the Brigade of Guards from their fellows it is that the officers lie under discipline more exacting than that of the rank and file; and that even more than in any other branch of the service they are responsible for the comfort of their men. Forced together as they were in the stark intimacy of the trenches, that at any moment may test any soul to the uttermost; revealed to each other, every other day at least, in the long and wearisome march to billets, where the companies and platoons move slowly and sideways through the communication-trenches, gambling against death — if the German heavies are busy — at each step of the road, officers and men came to a mutual comprehension and affection — which in no way prevented the most direct and drastic criticism or penalties — as impossible to describe as it would be to omit, since it was the background against which their lives ran from day to day. The Celt’s national poise and manner, his gift of courtesy and sympathy, and above all the curious and communicable humour of his outlook in those days made it possible for him and his officers to consort together upon terms perhaps debarred to other races. When the men practised “crime” they were thorough and inventive in the act and unequalled in the defence as the records of some courtmartials testify. But the same spirit that prompted the large and imaginative sin and its unexpected excuse or justification (as, for example, that three sinners detected in removing a large cask of beer were but exercising their muscles in “rowling it a piece along the pavé”) bred a crop of forceful regimental characters. Many, very many of these, have perished and left no record save the echo of amazing or quaint sayings passed from mouth to mouth through the long years; or a blurred record of some desperately heroic deed, lightheartedly conceived and cunningly carried through to its triumphant end and dismissed with a jest. The unpredictable incidence of death or wounds was a mystery that gave the Irish full rein for sombre speculation. Half an hour’s furious bombardment, with trenches blowing in by lengths at a time, would end in no more than extra fatigues for the disgusted working-parties that had to repair damage. On another day of still peace, one sudden light shell might mangle every man in a bay, and smear the duckboards with blood and horrors. A night-patrol, pinned down by a German flare, where they sprawled in the corn, and machine-gunned till their listening comrades gave up all hope, would tumble back at last into their own trenches unscathed, while far back in some sheltered corner the skied bullet, falling from a mile and a half away, would send a man to his account so silently that, till the body slid off the estaminet bench, his neighbours never guessed. The ironies and extravagances of Fate were so many, so absurd, and so terrible, that after a while human nature ceased to take conscious account of them or clutched at the smallest trifles that could change a mind’s current. The surest anodyne and one that a prudent commanding officer took care to provide was that all hands should have plenty to do. To repair a breach or to cut a fire-step was not enough. There was a standard in these matters to be lived up to, which was insisted upon through all the days of trench-warfare. None knew how long the deadlock would last or when the enemy, wearied of mining, bombs, and heavy artillery, might attempt a break-through. When the first line was cleaned and consolidated and finished with what was deemed then ample dug-out accommodation, supporting parties behind it had to be brought up to a like level; and so on.

The enemy at that time, on that line, interfered very little. They rigged a searchlight on one of the brickstacks in their possession one evening, but took it down after our guns had protested. Occasionally they shelled Béthune, while trying to hit an observation balloon near the town; and sometimes they bombed with trench-mortars. There were, however, days on end when nothing could stir them up, or when a few authoritative warnings from our guns would cut short a demonstration almost as it began. They were bombed for some hours to keep them out of the craters and to cover our men at work. In this work No. 4906 Private Henry won the D.C.M. in continuing to throw bombs though twice wounded (the Irish are gifted at hurling things) till he was at last ordered off the field. The enemy replied with everything except rifle-fire and in the darkness of a rainy night “his machine-guns caused some annoyance,” till, after our artillery had failed to find them, the Battalion trench-mortars silenced them and allowed us to finish digging the new trenches and sap. The whole affair lasted four hours and was carried out by No. 1 Company, under Captain M. V. Gore-Langton, at the cost of 1 man killed, 1 officer, Lieutenant the Hon. H. A. V. Harmsworth, slightly wounded, and 7 men wounded.

On the 3rd August Lieutenant H. F. Law was sent out with a patrol to examine yet another mine-crater close to the two which the Battalion had occupied on its first night. He threw bombs into it, found it empty, and the companies began at once to dig up to it from two points and make it all their own. The enemy “interfered” with the working-parties for a while but was bombed off. At daybreak he retaliated with a methodical bombardment along the line of seven-inch minenwerfers — one every three minutes — for an hour and a half. These could be seen dropping perpendicularly ere they exploded but they did no great damage, and the rest of the day was peaceful till a sudden thunderstorm made everything and everybody abominably dirty. (Additional fatigues are always more resented than any additional risks of death.)

When they came up again on the 6th August they found that an enemy mine in the orchard had exploded, wounding several of the Grenadiers whom they were relieving, and done damage to some of our own work. While they were making good, the Mining Company overheard Germans at work in a gallery a few feet from one of ours. The men were withdrawn at once from the forward line till dawn, when our mine was sprung “to anticipate enemy action.” It might have injured some of the enemy’s work, but it certainly disorganized several of our own sap-heads which had to be re-dug.

Into the variegated activities of that morning dropped a staff officer of the First Army Corps anxious to get the C.O.’s notes and instructions on mining for new troops who might later have to hold that line “in accordance with the manner taught by experience.” Captain J. H. T. Priestman of the Lincolnshires, a Sandhurst instructor, arrived with him and was attached to the sector for a few days “to see how things were carried on.” As he was being taken round the trenches by the C.O. and the Adjutant, next morning, a private, on sentry with a bomber, tried to throw a bomb on his own account, but, says the Diary, “not knowing how to, he blew himself up and wounded the bomber.” By breakfast time the enemy were shelling the line in enfilade from the direction of Auchy and two men were blown to pieces. A couple of hours later the bombardment was repeated with, from first to last, 6 killed and 9 wounded. The instructor was but one of many whose unregarded duty was to study at first hand every device of the enemy in action and to lecture upon it at the training-centres in England a few days later.